Introduction:

LSD is a classic and well known psychedelic drug known to be well tolerated physiologically by almost all users. Until recently very few analogues existed due to the relative difficulty of synthesising the lysergic acid backbone but in recent years constant scheduling of lower-hanging fruit has forced innovation in the novel psychoactive substance industry and a number of lysergamides have emerged as a result.

1-Acetyl-LSD (ALD-52) is somewhat notorious for its sale as “Orange Sunshine Acid” in California in the 1960s but has remained mysterious due to the theory that it might degrade to LSD combined with the slightly increased synthetic complexity putting off would-be chemists.

Despite being used to convict the manufacturers, the scientific principle behind this theory is incredibly unstable, with the acetyl group being used in laboratories around the world as a protecting group for indoles like LSD. Once attached, the group is resistant to removal…

Okay, we have officially become the stupidest nation in the world, or so the media would have us believe. Because I, for one, cannot believe that the kids in the United States think that simply because marijuana is becoming legal in increasingly more states and has been approved for recreational use that it is not dangerous.
Why do I make such an audacious claim? For the reason that that is what many recent articles in print news and on the web are stating: that kids in the United States have been polled and they believe that marijuana isn’t dangerous simply because it is ‘legal’ (parenthesis because that is mostly for medical purposes). I can’t believe kids would be that stupid, because if the children are our future than it ain’t looking very bright. We also have to remember that these kids are buying and using drugs they purchase off the Internet sold as ‘legal highs’. These are the same kids that are smoking synthetic marijuana and snorting chemicals that are approximating cocaine and methamphetamine but are light years more dangerous. So another question is (if the kids truly do believe that marijuana isn’t dangerous) do we trust their opinion? Doesn’t sound like we should, based on all the other drugs they’re doing.
Now, flip that coin and think of all these legal highs, the heroin scourge that is plaguing the United States (not to mention the meth problem) and suddenly marijuana doesn’t seem all that dangerous after all, does it? Maybe these kids are on to (not just on) something. Comparatively a little pot doesn’t seem all that bad if you are prepping a syringe to shoot heroin or meth or cocaine or research chemicals. What would you rather have your kids do, smoke a little pot or snort some chemical they have no idea is yet can be bought from a website for twenty dollars? Do you even need to think of an answer to that? Do you?
We all know the inherent dangers of everything, don’t we? Cheeseburgers will give you bad cholesterol and potentially make you fat…if you eat to many of them. Alcohol will shut down your liver, give you high blood pressure and increase your belly size…if you drink too much. Marijuana will make your reaction time slower, will impair your ability to drive and will seriously put a hurtin’ on the Twinkies in your home at any given time…if you smoke too much. Cigarettes…don’t even get me started on cigarettes.
So, the question remains: do kids really think that marijuana isn’t dangerous simply because it is becoming increasingly legal? Let’s ask them if they think cigarettes are dangerous, or booze or cheeseburgers or Viagra. I’d like to hear what they have to say.
Or maybe the media against the legalization of marijuana (sponsored by the tobacco and alcohol companies no doubt) should do a little more research instead of shouting ‘Fire’ in a crowded theatre during a first run showing of the latest Transformer’s movie because I, for one, still refuse to believe that kids are that fucking stupid. Period.

Type something into a Google search and chances are it will pop right up. If you type something pornographic into a Google search something will pop up all right…your dick! Where the hell does all this free porn come from, and where do all these girls who are willing to star in it live? Seriously! There are so many lesbian sites that I swear one out of every five girls in the world MUST be doing lesbian porn to pay for vacations, college, clothes…something, there are so many. I keep thinking I’ll run into these models I’m jerkin’ it to at the grocery store or something but, then again, I wouldn’t recognize them because I’m not looking at their faces. I might recognize a well-trimmed beav though, except the majority of these chicks are totally shaved, bald as eleven year olds. And to that I say: That’s the way, uh-huh uh-huh I like it! Uh-huh uh-huh! That’s the way uh-huh uh-huh I like it! Uh-huh uh-huh!
Of course there a ton of dudes doing porn, but it’s obvious why they would do it: free pussy! They can’t be getting paid, unless it’s gay porn, and then maybe only some of the guys, the good-looking ones. The ugly guys will do gay porn for the same reason that regular looking guys will do hetero porn. It’s all about the blowjobs baby!
But I’m totally not kidding. Explore the porn site 89.com and follow all the lesbian links. It will take you all day and you’ll never see the same girl twice. Is there an alternate reality somewhere that is full of hot lesbians willing to have their photo taken while licking out another chicks ass crack? How do I get there? Geez, the lesbians I know, well, let’s just say Penthouse won’t be calling them any time soon. No offence intended, um, ladies…not to mention that they won’t let me watch, much less take pictures or videos. That in itself is a crime!
According to the Internet there are zillions of hot sluts out there ready, willing and anxious to rim another chick. Could this information be true? If I could somehow pry myself away from these sites and do some actual research maybe I’d come up with some answers instead of a box of empty Kleenex and a used up tube of Astroglide for my troubles. Maybe. Chances are I’d probably just give up and watch TV instead. Skinamax anyone?

Recreational drug aficionados are probably aware that right at their fingertips there are a plethora of legal drugs that can be purchased in head shops and on the web. From stimulants to canniboids to hallucinogens to synthetic opiates and benzodiazapine analogues (plus myriad others) it seems the whole spectrum of pharmaceutical realms is made possible thanks to all those busy bees working in laboratories in China to come up with just the right blend for you. With names like 5-EAPB and AH-7921 these chemical concoctions are available for purchase twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week (except on holidays).
And then there are the natural drugs that are legally available: kratom, an opiate-like drug that is a stimulant in low doses and a depressant in higher doses. Salvia, an extremely strong hallucinogen that can literally transport you from one sphere of consciousness to another with one hit, and blue lotus which is a flower that can be smoked or soaked in wine for sedative effects. The natural drugs are somewhat ‘safe’ depending on how you use them, yet the effects can vary. Salvia has the potential to be truly terrifying (and I tried a relatively ‘low’ dose) while kratom and blue lotus can be somewhat soothing.
The designer drug craze started in 2003 when basement chemists looking to make a fast buck started digging up old formulas that had been invented and abandoned when they were found to be too wonky. MDPV (methyldioxypyravalone) was a drug created in the 60’s for weight loss and chronic fatigue. It was quickly discovered that it was highly addictive, active at very low doses (making overdoses easy) and extremely bad for your heart, not to mention your psyche. This was the main ingredient in what were sold as ‘bath salts’. Its predecessor was mephedrone, which was sold as ‘plant food’. Both drugs are of the cathinone class and are vasoconstrictors that can cause tachardia and high blood pressure (much like cocaine and methamphetamine but considerably worse). When these were made illegal other compounds stepped up to take their place. MDPPP, A-PVP, Ethylphenidate and methiopropamine are just a few that are still available and unscheduled in most countries.
I would be a liar if I said I never tried some of these drugs, and I can attest that they are similar to meth and coke; they are dopamine reuptake inhibitors, meaning they make you feel good as hell. Euphoric, stimulated…the whole package. But they are incredibly dodgy at best, and some of the side effects are extraordinarily scary to say the least. My experiments with MDPV bath salts were mostly controlled, but I have to admit it was a drug that could quickly get on top of you if you didn’t watch what you were doing and maintained a proper dosage. Too much and your heart beat like a runaway train as you paced and prayed, hopping to make it out the other side without a visit to the emergency room (been there, done that, got the t-shirt). I also tried MDPPP and found it was more user friendly, but some of the side effects were nasty; vomiting yellow fluid, painful headaches and fevers accompanied by insomnia and extreme sleep twitches were just a few.
The hallucinogens don’t fair any better; some of them are active at such low doses that users unwittingly take too much and experience trips that last twelve to twenty-four hours, sometimes longer. Long-term psychosis is a very real threat from some of these chemicals, and emergency rooms are being flooded with more and more overdoses each year.
The canniboids are the worst of the bunch. They increase your heart rate more so than a number of the stimulants and have been found to cause permanent brain damage in some users. Seriously. Look it up. Right now I can go to my local head shop and buy any number of varieties of these chemicals. They are very popular because they bypass drug tests and they mimic the properties of their illegal counterparts.
If you must experiment at least do some research. I was in possession of the MDPV for eight months before I finally tried it, reading everything I could online about it before I took the plunge. Even then I knew it was stupid but what the hell, I was curious. After using it seven times I threw out the remainder, and I had enough on hand to get a whole Marine base high that I’d purchased for $40.
Fortunately the American government is coming to their senses and allowing limited legality of marijuana, one of the most innocuous of drugs comparatively to stimulants and opiates. Don’t get me wrong, weed is a strong drug (especially the genetically engineered plants for medical use; some varieties will truly fuck you up son) and kids shouldn’t use it but it is much safer than everything else that’s out there, alcohol included all you flag-waving, bourbon-drinking sons a bitches (although I do like my booze).
If you can’t find cocaine, methamphetamine or heroin and the desire to get high overwhelms you there are substances out there you can buy to get the same effect. But just be smart and be safe. Your life depends on it.

I’ve lived in the greater San Diego area for ten years so I am no stranger to wildfire season. In 2007 San Diego County and North County experienced some of the worst wildfires in decades and that was my first taste of this extraordinary phenomenon. During the fires of 2007 I was pet-sitting in a location that was cut off from safety by all sides except the west; should the fires have become too out of control my only recourse was to take the dogs and stand in the Pacific ocean. Suffice it to say that did not please me very much. I stayed up for days, monitoring the TV coverage, sleeping a few hours here and there on the couch, freaking out. In a word: sucked. I was cleaning up the raining ash on an hourly basis at one point; at another I was certain my own place was going to burn down when I heard my neighborhood had been evacuated. When I returned home after the fires had been mostly contained I found a lot of ash and some smoke damage but that was all. One of my neighbors, an old drunken coot, had stayed when everyone else fled. He said it got mighty hot at one point but other than that everything was fine.
So, with Firestorm 2014, I was again thrown into a spiral of uncertainty when I saw the smoke and the flames eating through the vegetation, and then a very nice neighborhood-all on its way to my neighborhood. I watched in frozen terror as the fire swept up the hillside, devouring everything in its path. To say it was surrealistic is an understatement; seeing helicopters continuously swoop in and dump flame retardant on the twenty to thirty foot high ‘fire tornadoes’ was indeed a heady experience. I fretted, I worried, I paced and, in the end (when the wind died down and then began blowing in the other direction, enabling the fire fighters to get a better handle on it) I drank until I could stand no more. Yet before I passed out I made sure I left my front door unlocked in the event that someone should come in the middle of the night and tell me evacuation was necessary. No one did, fortunately, and the next day the fire burning near my place was about twenty percent contained; due to the shifting winds, the worst was now being battled inland, and not near the coast.
Wildfire season is a dreaded reality in the high desert when the area is in a 100% drought, which the San Diego area has been for the last six months, and I have to commend the firefighters for their preparedness and their undaunted ability to get in there and do their damndest in the face of such odds. In all, nine fires raged out of control in North County (in order from the south: San Diego County, North, Riverside, Orange, L.A. to give you a perspective) and over the course of a week the firemen were put to the test. All I can say is thanks guys. Job well done! I’ll remember you at Christmas, that’s for damn sure!

Most people don’t want to know what goes on behind the scenes at an animal hospital or, possibly, never even give it any thought. At the age of thirty I found myself switching careers (sort of a misnomer; you actually have to HAVE a career to switch) and saw an ad for kennel help at an animal hospital. It immediately intrigued me, having done restaurant work, retail, hard labor, sales etc. while trying to support myself as a struggling musician/writer. It sounded like something new, and I could work with animals. What wasn’t to like? I called and arranged a time to go in and fill out an application. After meeting them I almost didn’t get hired because the place was very conservative and I showed up with long hair and earrings. The only reason they did eventually hire me was because they went through personnel like toilet paper. Of course I didn’t know that at the time. While I was waiting for them to call I was working as a shrimp peeler and oyster shucker at a seafood restaurant. I was the only white guy and so was left out of all conversations (I didn’t speak Spanish). Not only that I smelled like the bottom of the fucking ocean and nothing could kill that stench. The other workers smiled at me, the pity evident in their eyes. The lone white guy and I had the worst job in the house!
The animal hospital started me in the kennel where I walked, bathed and fed the boarding dogs as well as cleaned their cages. Eventually I was also responsible for their medications. After I finished in the kennel I would go in the hospital to see if they needed any help. Within a month of being there they were teaching me how to draw blood, give vaccines, clip nails, express anal glands, clean teeth, assist clients and their pets in the patient visit rooms, answer the phone, dispense medication etc. etc. etc…in other words all the duties of a veterinary technician (or assistant, depending on what state you are working in). This job was in Texas in 1999 so I was considered a technician. The job has undergone many changes since its humble beginnings back in the day when aspiring veterinarians handled such duties (read ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ and you’ll know what I’m talking about). So, as the position grew, programs began sprouting up at community colleges that were similar to dental assistant programs; one to two year courses that taught you the rudiments of being a veterinary technician and, at the courses end, if you passed the final exam, you were considered ‘registered’ or ‘certified’. These days the classes are full of young girls fresh out of high school who don’t have the gumption to become a veterinarian (eight years of school!) but want to help however they can. What was once a male dominated occupation was taken over by these young ladies in the 2000’s. Go into any veterinarian office and count how many men you see. That one old guy? Yeah, he owns the place. And a lot of clinics now specify that they want registered or certified technicians. Doesn’t matter if you’ve been doing the job for over ten years, trained into it, they prefer their employees to have taken all the math and science requirements (even though they will have little to no use for them). Presently I am the lone old man in a clinic in Encinitas, California where I work with veterinarians who are younger than me. I am ten years older than the owner, working with women in their twenties who love telling me what to do and make jokes about me behind my back. Since they went to school they consider me the charity case, the pitiable old codger they have politely hired so that they can’t be considered guilty of age or sexual discrimination. But anyway…
When I began in the field I knew nothing about any of that, all I knew was what I saw; people walked in the door and if they could handle the sight of blood and weren’t afraid of getting bit than the doctors would teach them the skills they would need to assist them properly. I lasted at that animal hospital eight months, which was about six months longer than I thought I would. Why? What I saw at that place was nothing short of horrendous; the owner and his associate were breaking laws left and right (again, I didn’t know this, I was, after all, new to the business). These assholes would euthanize any animal for little to no reason as long as the client had cash. They put down a perfectly healthy two year old German Sheppard simply because the owner refused to pay his boarding bill. Seriously. I tried to find him a home and, after a long search, thought I found a good family. They were supposed to pick him up on one of my days off. I came in after the weekend, refreshed, happy that the dog was no longer there; he’d been in that cage since the first day I was shown the kennel, about a month. Whistling a cheery tune I went about my day, but it was near the end of my shift that I found out the truth. At every clinic there is a freezer for one purpose only: body storage. We had a euthanasia late in the day and I was the one to bag it, tag it and put the carcass in the freezer and what did I see on top when I opened it up? Yes, the German Sheppard. He’d found a home all right, but not one in this world. When I asked the doctors why they did it they said the people never showed up to pick him up and so it was the last thing they did on Saturday. I cried all the way home and then cried about it off and on for the rest of the week. Over the course of time I worked there I witnessed many unnecessary euthanizations, in fact was the reason I eventually quit.
The kicker to all of this, the thing I had no idea was illegal regarding their procedures, was the body disposal. At the end of the week the doctor had us empty out the freezer into the dumpster. Yes, you read that correctly. When I began work at the next clinic (one that was much nicer, staffed by doctors who harbored mercy in their hearts) I found out that was illegal; clinics employed carcass removal companies who came and took the animals for cremation. The thing that disturbed me the most about the doctor at the first clinic was the story he told clients when their pet was put to sleep. He claimed he had a large piece of land on the Colorado River (this part of the story was true) and that he took the animals there and buried them in a pet cemetery (that part was total bullshit). That bastard is lucky no one ever asked to visit, because the place was a fantasy. Those dogs, cats, rabbits etc. were getting tossed into the dumpster and being piled up in landfills all across southwest Texas. If the owners knew that I am sure they would have been very unhappy, to say the least. Because it was Texas they probably would have shot the son of a bitch.
I could talk about other atrocities I saw at that place but I suppose no one wants to read about it. I certainly wouldn’t. I once watched a reality show about an animal hospital on Animal Planet and found it upset me very much. Who the hell wants to watch animals in pain and distress? It takes a special person to work with them, so kudos to all of those who do. Its simply a shame that an old man like me who trained into such a position late in life (hoping like hell one of his books was eventually going to sell) has to remain in the company of little kids who consider me a relic of days gone by, embarrassed that I don’t know the names of popular singing groups they listen to (I like Devildriver, Slipknot, Slayer and Cannibal Corpse; I suppose I am a little old fashioned).
So when you go into your local vet’s office and you talk to that little girl at the front desk with the purple hair and the pierced tongue, know that she probably has taken some class somewhere to ensure that she knows what she is talking about when she discusses the finer points of intestinal parasites or the pros and cons of spaying and neutering your pets. And, if you look closer, you just might see an old geezer like myself loitering around with a mop clenched in his arthritic hands, an expression of ennui on his elderly, seamed face as he wonders how these young kids can make him feel so stupid simply because he is older than them and doesn’t delight in poking your pet with a needle (yes, cats out of the bag on this one. These young girls call themselves ‘vampires’ and will fight each other for the chance to jab Fluffy with a syringe). It’s not that I can’t, I simply don’t have the energy to fight with these kids over it. I’ll probably get fired any day and then I’ll be working at the Ralph’s. I sometimes wonder what’s worse and there are days that I simply can’t make up my mind. I am still hoping people will start buying my books; please, end this madness. Buy my fucking book The Gyre Mission: Journey to the *sshole of the World, available on Kindle and in softcover through Amazon.com. Maybe then I can quit this job and have a little dignity. Probably not, but here’s hoping anyway! Also available soon: Glitch In The Machine and Killing The Kendershian’s, available in ebook via amazon.com.

I have tried so many different things for this blog and found it to be very hit or miss. People want information, facts, stats; they want to learn how to do something they don’t have the foggiest notion about. ‘Write what you know’ is what ‘they’ always say. So in that spirit I am going to dedicate this blog to something everyone will need to know at some point in his or her life for various different reasons. Some might have an ‘altercation’ with a prostitute in Vegas, while others may simply need to get rid of a pesky neighbor or ‘loved’ one. So here it is, the definitive guide on How To Get Rid of a Body (after you killed them).
1) Don’t panic. You’ve already committed the crime so the best thing to do is own it. Do you want to get caught and spend the rest of your life getting ass-fucked by a man named Bubba? No, you certainly don’t. So take a deep breath and relax (or that is what Bubba will be telling you right before he…yeah, I didn’t want to finish that sentence either).
2) Check the blood spatter. How far did it go? Remember, a CSI team is going to be tearing your place apart in the next few days so the better you clean up, the better chance you have.
3) Use the best trash bags on the market. Most likely you’re going to have to dismember the body in your bathtub so you can get rid of pieces instead of the entire corpse. The last thing you need is a cheap bag tearing and spilling all over your front sidewalk, alerting your neighbors or that bratty kid who cuts your lawn, the little punk. (Note to self: he’s next!).
4) Always use the correct acid for dissolving bodies. If you get your information from TV, you might want to double-check your facts. Hydrofluoric acid may have been used on Breaking Bad to melt a corpse, but in real life that won’t work. You’ll need something stronger, like sulfuric or hydrochloric acid but if you want you can place the body in a vat consisting of boiling water and lye, just don’t expect all the bones to dissolve. You may have some pieces left over to bury, which leads us to:
5) Bury the body DEEP. If you don’t feel like melting a body in your tub and you can safely get the body somewhere secluded, make sure you dig the hole at least six feet. That will keep animals from digging it up. Shallow graves are cool to joke about but that’s how people get caught!
6) Don’t tell anyone! I know that sounds sort of obvious but most people can’t keep something like this to themselves. They just have to brag! So, if you don’t want to be swapping stories in the prison yard with other felons, just shut yer yap and be glad that you got away with it. One less asshole in your life making you miserable is a whole lot better than nothing!
And so my friends, those are the basics of body removal. There are other steps that may be involved; it all depends upon your situation, each one unique unto itself. Different murders require different methods. In my next blog we’ll discuss useful murder techniques, from stabbing to shooting to bludgeoning it will all be covered here. Peace out, and always watch your back!